


Chasing the RABIT: The Jaeger Program After the End of the World

by Fallowsthorn



Category: Pacific Rim (Movies)
Genre: Epistolary, Gen, Mentions of Sex, Pseudoscience, excerpts of a work that doesn't exist, tldr drifting makes you wanna screw
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-08-03
Updated: 2013-08-03
Packaged: 2019-10-28 21:24:29
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 747
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17795015
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Fallowsthorn/pseuds/Fallowsthorn
Summary: Excerpts from the bestselling nonfiction bookChasing the RABIT: The Jaeger Program After the End of the World





	Chasing the RABIT: The Jaeger Program After the End of the World

**Author's Note:**

> Found this in my bookmarks and discovered I'd apparently never archived it. Originally written for the Pacific Rim kink meme. It was a fun concept, though I didn't do much with it.

****

**Chapter Seven: Everything You Wanted to Know About Drifting (But Were Afraid to Ask)**

In earlier chapters, we went over some of the more serious side effects of drifting: why pilots must share the neural load of a Jaeger between them, the technicalities and human variation in being drift-compatible. This chapter is intended to explore some of the less serious, but still prominent, side effects of drifting.

The most well-known, and well-publicized, is the rare occurrence of a phenomenon known as 'ghost-drifting'. In very few cases, the neural handshake will extend beyond the Jaeger's frame, and the pilots will be telepathically linked without need for technological support, although to a much more limited degree. Invariably, this results in shared dreams, but some pairs have reported being able to feel sensations and emotions experienced by the other partner, such as pain, fear, hunger or sexual arousal.

Unfortunately the number of people who experience ghost-drifting is incredibly low, and most of them died while the Jaeger Program was still active. Aleksis Kaidonovsky, one such pilot, has said, "It is not like anything you can imagine. It sounds cliche, yes, but part of us is always -- shared. We are not two separate people anymore, not entirely. In the back of our minds there is a unity, there is us. You have not drifted, you do not know. But we are always there."

Drifting, at the time of this writing, is still being evaluated and explored for civilian, non-Jaeger use, so it's possible that more cases will turn up. For now, though, the sample size is too small, and the records too limited, to study the phenomenon in detail.

* * *

Previously we've discussed the factors that complicate drifting; in particular the 'modesty reflex' comes to mind, the tendency to (at least attempt to) suppress or judge memories, instincts, or desires that either partner deems shameful. Because of both the culture most pilots came from and the fact that they tended to be young men and women in their late teens and early twenties, these memories and so on tended to be of a sexual nature: hence, 'modesty'.

It's been speculated by various reputable sources that this is the cause of many prospective drifts failing; something of the opposite of 'chasing the rabbit', as the pilot is too focused on trying to hide the memory from his or her partner. In the same way as saying to someone, "Don't think of pink elephants," this clearly does not go well on any level.

However, there is a less talked-about flip side to the modesty reflex. Again due to the tendency of pilots to be young, healthy, and in the prime of their sexual maturity, a good portion of their thoughts focus around sex.

(An interesting point to note here is that several physiologists and psychologists have noted that having sex raised drift compatibility, perhaps because of the large amounts of endorphins involved. The book _Mindf*ck_ analyzes this concept in much more depth - but I digress.)

Thus, it was not uncommon for Jaeger pilots to return from battle and immediately fall into bed with one another, due to a combination of adrenaline, residual memories, and the simple desire to be close to each other after the loss of the neural link. It wasn't until the deployment of Tacit Ronin that this behavior (thought at the time to be the pilots' actual relationship, unaffected by outside forces) was recognized as an influence of the drift, and a strong one at that.

Several family pairs, of course, immediately dropped out of the Jaeger Program once they heard that this was a possibility. For security reasons, no one save for those in the final stages of Jaeger training, i.e., those who had already chosen their partners, was told of this, but eventually, of course, more and more people found out. One notable exception to this is the case of Yancy and Raleigh Becket; they were the first sibling team to pilot a Jaeger together after the Koyamadas, and appeared to have found a way to deal with the excess of energy more appropriately.

Given the subject matter, very few pilot pairs are or were willing to talk about this side effect of drifting. The PPDC, on the other hand, gives all pilots a mandatory twelve-hour leave directly after a battle, and after their first drift, most if not all pilots shared their rooms at the Shatterdomes. It seems we are free to speculate as we please.

**Author's Note:**

> In my author's notes on the original thing I said I spent three hours on the wiki and half an hour actually writing it and... yeah, that seems right.


End file.
